I’ve been feeling really disconnected lately so here’s a lil switchblade Lawrence/Bruce thing for @hausofgreene.
Lawrence doesn’t usually spend time alone with Bruce. He gravitates towards James (a given) or Joel (who has a recent obsession with Lawrence’s arms and burying his face in his chest for hours while they cuddle in the armchair by the window). And for his part, Bruce is glued to Adam’s hip and spends his free time rolling after Sean on a board down quiet side streets.
Lawrence shows up to Basecamp on a Sunday morning and there’s a note left on the kitchen table.
took the little ones MATT JOEL SPOOLE to the mall! –kovic
He grins to himself at Sean’s huge sloppy capitals, able to imagine the offended squawk he must have given when he read Adam’s note.
Then he does a mental count—four at the mall, James at church—that leaves him and Bruce. He feels the slightest pit of disappointment fill his gut, which quickly dissolves into guilt. He loves Bruce. He does. He does.
It’s just…sometimes Bruce reminds him of bullies at school. Bruce has a sense of cool about him the others lack. He likes to call them nerds and bully them gently, but both Lawrence and Sean have agreed sometimes the well-intended heckling cuts deeper than it should.
When the clouds are gathering dark, heavy in his mind and he feels himself floating ten feet above his head. When voices gnaw at his insides and his flesh crawls on the outside. When his heart thuds in his throat and tears prick at his eyes and blood rushes in his ears too loud, too fast for him to hear—
“Lawrence.”
—and his teeth are cutting into his cheek where they’re biting down with the weight of his world and his lungs ache with the push and pull of each short breath escaping his nose—
“Lawrence!”
—and his stomach churns and his fingers shake—
“Man, cut it out!”
—and Lawrence blinks. The fog clears and color rushes back into the kitchen. Bruce’s face is inches away. His hands are wrapped tight around Lawrence’s shoulders, holding his wracking frame still. Bruce has paint smeared across the bridge of his nose, yellow and sunny like daffodils in spring. Lawrence stares at him, thoughts turning from flowers to rain and rain to thunder and Bruce shakes him again.
“Are you here? Lawrence?”
“No,” he croaks.
“Where are you?”
“In the rain.” His own voice sounds miles away.
He watches himself be pushed down the single step into the garage. Watches his body fall onto the mattress and Bruce go down after him. The shaking in his bones vibrates them both as Bruce wraps a sheet around their bodies.
“I’m sorry I’m not good at this like Kovic is,” he hears Bruce say.
Lawrence’s eyebrows furrow and he squeezes Bruce tight.
“You’re great at everything, shut up,” he mumbles.
“Still raining?” Bruce asks as Lawrence ducks his head beneath his chin.
“Just a drizzle.”
“Sounds like good weather for a nap.”
All the energy seeps from Lawrence’s body like dew on a canvas tent and he lets Bruce tangle their legs and focuses on matching his breathing with Bruce’s, their stomachs pressed warm together.
He’s not sure exactly when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up, it’s to Bruce’s hand stroking slowly down his neck to his shoulders and back up. He rolls back slightly, enough to squint up at Bruce’s own sleepy face.
“Mornin’,” Bruce says.
Lawrence nods back in greeting, then flops onto his back, one arm still tucked underneath Bruce, the other cradling his head for lack of pillow. Bruce leans over him, propped up on an elbow. With his free hand he strokes Lawrence’s cheek, tilting his chin towards him. Lawrence stares for a moment, then sighs.
“Sorry, Bruce.”
Bruce just laughs that stupid, thick laugh that causes butterflies to stir in Lawrence’s stomach. He leans down and kisses Lawrence, scruffy stubble scratching Lawrence’s lips. He rolls back onto his side, grips the back of Bruce’s shirt and pulls him closer and closer until he’s sure the rain can’t get him here.
So I just recently listened to the entirety of Gaga’s ARTPOP, which meant hearing the song Dope for the first time. And I fell in love. Then wrote this fic.
Greentag/Grovic; AU; WARNING: Drug Use
AO3
I HIGHLY recommend listening to this song before reading! Also during/after if you wanna :-)
The party’s just begun
God, Bruce was perfect. Bruce was always, always, always there with strong arms wrapping around him when he had passed his limit at a party and was on the verge of falling into the bushes on the walk to the bus stop. Bruce was there the morning after with aspirin and unlimited glasses of cold water to cure Lawrence’s hangover. Bruce was there with soft kisses as the ache and overall grossness went away, then harder ones when Lawrence was feeling back to his usual self. They were young. Doing this every weekend was no big deal.
Sometimes Lawrence would smoke. He didn’t like it, but drunk Lawrence did. He could never do it sober. It made him feel like he was losing everything, losing his mind, just from the slight effects. He always offered Bruce a hit, and Bruce would always laugh and decline from across the room. Bruce preferred Lawrence clean, even if a bit tipsy. The hypocrite.
I know I fucked up again
Bruce didn’t exactly remember how he got there, but by the time he had Lawrence, he had clients. Weed, mostly. Easy stuff. Petty. Shit that Lawrence might not have minded if he had found out before things escalated. Before Bruce had Lawrence, he was high every day off of his own product. Well, his guy’s product. He was just the mover. The middleman.
He remembered the first time he saw heroin. Well, he had seen it before in the backs of clubs and in alleys and in the bathroom of a gas station, but never clean. Raw. Untouched. He cried. He had a client lined up the next day who took it all off of his hands, and he cried again. Never after that, though. It became normal. He was taking in more money than every before, able to afford his second car. He had a drawer of syringes in his second, unused bedroom, separate from where he kept the product.
God forgive my sins
It destroyed people. His clients would come back more frequently for product he didn’t have. He had to quit selling to a few. They tried to get physical with him, but Bruce’s size face to face was intimidating enough to make them back down. Was he proud? Well…he didn’t know. He had always wanted money, but this certainly wasn’t the way he imagined. He was proud of the fact that he stopped smoking once he got his hands on heroin. He knew he didn’t have enough will power to stop himself from trying out the new product once he got bored of the old.
Lawrence came into his life shortly after he started dealing hard drugs. When deciding between putting Lawrence on hold or putting the job on hold, he chose neither. He wanted both, so he kept them both. Lawrence brought peace to his life, as well as sass, snark, smarts, and a whole lot of sex.
He loved Lawrence so much. Fairly instantly, too. They met at a party, a friend-of-a-friend situation. Lawrence was still sober and rambling on about video games to stoners who couldn’t keep up. Bruce joined the mix, only one drink under his belt. He countered some of Lawrence’s arguments, played devil’s advocate some, and reveled in the way he was able to render Lawrence speechless, forcing him to take a few seconds to furrow his brows and collect his thoughts. It was beautiful. Lawrence was beautiful. They hooked up that night, but Bruce refused to sneak out in the morning. He raided the stranger’s fridge and cooked breakfast and ate in his underwear until Lawrence joined him.
Don’t leave me, I
Oh I will hate myself until I die
They didn’t move in together. Couldn’t. Lawrence brought it up, but Bruce kept putting it off. He would have to get out of the game first. He was planning on it, truly was. He just needed to secure a real job first instead of the fake one he described to Lawrence. Bruce spent days golfing or napping in the park or window shopping or taking long drives. Anything to never run into Lawrence ever except for when they planned for it.
When they did plan for it, Bruce drank in every second. Lawrence, too. They would play video games or discuss video games or nap together or go out and do things, but it almost always resulted in sex. Bruce had considered himself a strict top until he met Lawrence. Lawrence had considered himself a strict top until he met Bruce. They switched it up. No matter what they did, it was always interesting and fun and felt so damn good. But, unlike most of his past relationships, Bruce would have been just as happy without the sex.
He just wanted Lawrence forever.
My heart would break without you
Might not awake without you
Lawrence found the empty, untouched syringes. He was a respectful guy, but he could get nosy at times. So, poking around in his boyfriend’s apartment led to a revelation that neither of them ever wanted to happen. When Bruce came out of the bathroom, Lawrence was there with a syringe in hand. He flicked it and gave Bruce a devastating smirk.
“I don’t do heroin,” Bruce immediately said. Great. Maybe Lawrence wasn’t even thinking about that, and he just gave him a reason to. But Lawrence was. “I…I sell it.” Lawrence’s expression didn’t change. “Weed, too.” When Bruce decided to be honest, holy shit was he honest. “Have for a while now.” Lawrence held the syringe out for Bruce to take, so he obliged. He’d have to throw it out, anyway.
“So stop,” Lawrence shrugged. Bruce could see the hurt in his eyes. Lawrence cleared his throat and shrugged again. “Stop and I’ll stay.” Bruce looked down at his feet. “I knew about the weed, by the way. Knew you had it. Didn’t know what you did with it.”
“That’s not an option right now,” Bruce told him. He looked up again to meet his boyfriend’s eyes, which were squinted in skepticism. “I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s more complicated than just stopping.”
They stopped having sex, unless they were both drunk. When that happened, Lawrence would fuck Bruce into the mattress until they both came, then he’d roll over and sob into a pillow until he passed out. It was just weird. Everything was weird. It was so weird that Bruce started smoking again to feel a little bit normal again.
I’m sorry and I love you
Bruce didn’t stop selling. He tried for six hours one day to find a job, but the whole process of submitting resumes and doing interviews when he had no experience, save for college, didn’t appeal to him. It was just so much easier to deal, even if it came with legal repercussions if anyone ever caught him.
Instead of turning him in, Lawrence left him. He came into Bruce’s apartment one day with a paper shopping bag, threw some of his clothes in it, and then leaned against the countertop. Bruce had tears welling in his eyes. It had been building up to this moment, and they both knew it. Lawrence would often make snide remarks about Bruce’s “career” during arguments, which came more and more frequently. They could still enjoy each other’s company, though. They could still laugh and cry and joke and talk together, but when things became passionate they escalated to a point that ended up hurting both of them.
It wasn’t healthy anymore. Lawrence knew it, but Bruce hadn’t grasped onto that yet, didn’t want to.
“Please,” Bruce repeated for the fourth time since Lawrence had stepped into his apartment. “I love you, Lawrence, please.” That phrase made Lawrence bring a fist up to his mouth and screw his eyes shut. He couldn’t cry, because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And Bruce would try to comfort him and Lawrence wouldn’t be able to resist.
“I have to,” was all Lawrence could muster while he composed himself. He made eye contact with a glossy-eyed Bruce, which broke him even more than the man’s pleas. “I have to because I love you, but I also respect myself.” Bruce pleaded and begged and cried as Lawrence walked out the door. When it closed, he didn’t chase him. He just sank to the ground and stayed there until the sun came up the next morning.
Each day, I cry
It took six days for Bruce to use for the first time. He was tired of not being able to feel anything except emptiness. He had been living in his bed for six days, only leaving the house to do business. He wore sunglasses outside to hide his tired, puffy eyes. Every few hours he would grab at the pillow Lawrence used to use, would bring it into his chest, and would cry until he would have to rush to the bathroom and empty what he had left of him into the toilet. It was physically and emotionally draining.
He didn’t text Lawrence. Anything he would say would just make things worse as long as he was still dealing. So instead, on the sixth day, he found a syringe and an elastic band and tore into the product he promised himself he would never touch. It took a few minutes to take effect, but when it did, he felt better than he had in weeks, even before Lawrence walked out. His chest stopped aching, his head stopped pounding, and he felt like he could sleep peacefully for once. But he had plans before sleep.
If he hadn’t been too tired to go out and buy more booze, he may not have made it. He would have been reckless. He wouldn’t have lasted long enough to flush every gram of everything he had down the toilet. He wouldn’t have lasted long enough to pack a bag and drive himself to the place he swore he would never end up. Bruce was high. He was high and numb and he checked himself into rehabilitation.
Been hurting low from living high for so long
They couldn’t do much for him, since he had only used once. But he didn’t feel safe in his empty apartment. He didn’t know what he would do to himself in there. He felt like he might keep buying from his supplier and using, not selling, until he died. He cried every night in there. He stayed for seventy days and cried for seventy nights. The staff tried to contact Lawrence for him. Maybe he could tend to Bruce’s apartment for seventy days, but he never answered. They tried every week, but they didn’t tell Bruce that.
He could have stayed a week, but the people there were so wonderful to him that he felt at home. He hadn’t felt at home since before Lawrence found the syringes. He got a job lined up right before he left the center, and passed the interview (and the drug test) with flying colors. He stopped selling for good. Cut off all contact with his supplier, leased a new apartment, sold his second car. He wanted to live a normal life, like Lawrence.
Toast one last puff
And two last regrets
The next time he saw Lawrence was four months after they broke up. Bruce looked so clean and jubilant, and he felt like a brand new person. He had to show Lawrence, go talk to him and explain what he’d been through since they last saw each other. So, Bruce drove to Lawrence’s apartment and smiled when he saw the same old bike locked haphazardly in the bike rack by the street. Lawrence didn’t answer when he knocked, though.
Joel did.
Bruce had sold to Joel in his early days, remembered the black curls and pointed features and lithe body. Bruce’s eyebrows raised, then furrowed. Joel tilted his head and put an arm up to brace himself against the doorframe. Bruce two months prior would have broken down right then and there, but New Bruce™ remained composed like a normal adult. Joel called Lawrence’s name sweetly. It rolled off his tongue so naturally. Joel gave Bruce a once over before Lawrence came to the door.
“Bruce,” Lawrence stated. Not a question. He wasn’t confused. He was indifferent. Bruce’s heart swelled at the sight of the bespectacled man, but he felt the aches again once he realized that Lawrence wasn’t necessarily happy that he was there.
Mine myself like coal
“I’m happy for you, I really am,” Lawrence spoke honestly. He had the softest of smiles on his face, and was looking deep into Bruce’s eyes, like he knew Bruce needed during serious conversations. Bruce had told him all about the sixth night and the toilet and rehab and his new job and his new apartment. “I am so damn proud of you, Bruce.” Bruce nodded, and Lawrence reached out to wipe his tears away.
“I did it for you,” Bruce muttered. It wasn’t a plea to make him want to come back, it was just a fact. “I knew you’d want me to.” Lawrence nodded, fondness in his eyes and smile now. He took Bruce’s shaking hands and pressed a kiss to each of them.
“I don’t regret being with you,” Lawrence informed him. “Never for a second have I ever regretted loving you. I didn’t get over you overnight. You were so good to me, Bruce. You know that? And it makes me the happiest human on this godforsaken planet to see that you’re finally being good to yourself.” That had Bruce leaning forward on the dining table, the heels of his hands digging into his eyes. Lawrence was quick to maneuver around the table and pull Bruce up so he could hold him.
“We can still be friends, right?” Bruce asked over his glass of water. His eyes were still red and he was sniffling, but he had a smile on his face now. Lawrence rolled his eyes as he took a sip of his own water.
“Of course,” Lawrence smirked. “You’ve been my best friend since the night you tried to tell my why platformers are the greatest genre of video game.” Bruce chuckled at that. Playing devil’s advocate was fun with Lawrence. “You aren’t allowed out of my life that easy.”
I’m sorry and I love you
Bruce eventually met Adam through work. Adam liked cats and Star Wars and Batman and the way Bruce kissed his cheek to say goodbye after they hung out for the first time. He especially liked the way Bruce apologized profusely after doing so. Red was a good color on him. Bruce thought it looked even better on Adam, so the next time they hung out he stopped at nothing to make sure he was flushed all over.
Adam’s ramblings weren’t always as put-together and informed as Lawrence’s, but Bruce liked supporting his arguments. Not even drunk Adam was interested in smoking, and Bruce was forever thankful for that. Bruce memorized Adam’s complex coffee orders by the second week of their relationship (yes, he had different orders for different times of the day). Adam accepted his past and his present and his future. Bruce didn’t protest when moving in together was brought up. In fact, he was the one to introduce the idea.
Lawrence was who Bruce needed in the dark, but Adam was the one he needed once his world brightened up. They wore each other’s clothes and drove to work together and became so painfully domestic that even Joel made fun of them sometimes. No more secrets, no more pain, no more worrying. Bruce didn’t regret his past anymore, because every step he took led him to Adam. He had to feel numb for a bit in order to love someone again, and that someone was Adam.
